Never mind the jump cuts; it’s time for existential dread (what, the news isn’t bringing that on enough, movie-makers?!).
Blog
The Pasadena Playhouse Is In Trouble, But Its New Artistic Director Is Ready To Fight For Its Survival
The Playhouse is celebrating its centennial but canceled two large-cast productions last year for plays with far, far fewer people, and had to get board loans for this year after the state of California cut $1 million from its budget (the cuts were restored). Still, new producing artistic director Danny Feldman “isn’t daunted by the challenges, referring to himself as ‘bizarre’ in that he loves fundraising.” Can he succeed?
There Are Two American Ballet Theaters, Thanks To The Needs Of Filling The Met
Having the 3,800-seat Metropolitan Opera House to dance in is a blessing and a curse for the ballet as it has to balance creativity with getting people in seats. “When dancing elsewhere, its repertory consists more largely of one-act ballets; when at the Met, it has tended to model itself on the old Royal: full-length ballets with impressive scenery and costumes, storytelling and acting.”
Even Famous Actors Have To Deal With A Huge Amount Of Sexism On Set
Zoe Kazan (whose partner of 10 years, Paul Dano, is named in the following quote) says, “There’s no HR department, right? We don’t have a redress. We have our union, but no one ever resorts to that, because you don’t want to get a reputation for being difficult. I’ve told Paul about stuff that has happened on set and it’s almost as if he can’t take it in. It’s too upsetting. And he’s never had to deal with that once.”
New Theatre In The UK Is ‘Drying Up’ As Funding Crises Hit Programs For Playwrights
Screenwriter Olivia Hatreed, president of the Writers’ Guild, says, “It always takes a couple of years after the cuts start for people to really feel the impact… You kind of go along and think it’s all fine, but really you’ve already walked off the cliff.”
How Is Wrestling Like Greek Theatre?
One of the creators of Netflix’s new wrestling series, GLOW, says: “You’re telling stories on a scale that we’re not used to, but that’s really exciting — that can cross cultures, can cross languages. From one side, if you’re being ungenerous, you can say it’s super reductive and then from the other side, you could say it’s storytelling at its most potently inclusive and epic.”
Empathy May Be Overrated
That’s right, we need to understand irreducible alterity – a philosophical concept developed by a Holocaust survivor. “What if instead of sameness it were otherness that was the foundation for ethical action? What if being confronted by someone utterly different from you — someone you are opposed to, confused by, scared of, someone you can’t understand — was the urgent signal that there was a life in need of your protection?”
The 3 Million Dollar Hobby Lobby Illegal Smuggling Case Casts A Pall Over The Museum Of The Bible
Not good, and Biblical scholars are taking note. (Also, wow: “The company never met the dealer, and wired payments to seven different bank accounts. The items arrived in 10 packages at three different Hobby Lobby addresses, labeled only ‘ceramic tiles’ and ‘clay tiles (sample).'”)
The Wage Gap For Actors Of Color Is Real, As The Hawaii Five-0 Mess Shows All Too Clearly
The fact that CBS wasn’t paying Asian American cast members anywhere near what white cast members were making is all too normal, the numbers say, including in TV dramas and comedies – and, obviously, cop shows.
The Bolshoi Has ‘Indefinitely Postponed’ A High-Profile Ballet About Nuryev, Perhaps Because Of The Director’s Outspoken Politics
Just days before the ballet was set to premiere, the Bolshoi shocked the dance world with this move. Its director, Kirill Serebrennikov, “has fallen out of favour with Russia’s cultural authorities in recent years and has denounced increasing censorship of the arts.”